Malban
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Thx.
I let mine running for about 7 hours yesterday… No Crash :-).
I think it does not really matter if you restart or not. The lowest “known” crash was in about level 23 (easy).
So I don’t really think the level – or the difficulty – matters.
Vectorblade_Beta44.bin – 12th March 2020
VectorbladeBeta44.V4E – 12th March 2020 – VecFever version
Geee… It has been nearly half a year.
Still waiting for the overlays :-)…Anyways… I had some disturbing news.
It seems Vectorblade can “crash” now and than. It seems to happen rather seldom, about once in 20-100 hours of play.Still I would like if possible to fix it. I have so far NO clue what happens. Its seems the crash can occur anywhere.
I have reports:- after a bonus collect
- before a minestorm
- without ANY discernable cause
My suspision actually is, that sometimes a “bankswitch” can miss (for whatever reason) and as a result the program counter is set to a non sensible location.
I can not reproduce the situation with an emulator (I have been running Vide for about 40 hours… straight).
I have written a “special” vectorblade version in the hope of collecting more information.
Since I suspect the bankswitching I added special debugging code for bankswitching (in order to fit – I had to shorten some animations).Vectorblade <should> display some information if a bankswitch “missed”.
It will display something like:
BS A xxxx yyyy zzzz
– BS for bankswitch error
– A an identifier for me, at which code location
– xxxx contents of the X-Register
– yyyy contents of the Stack register
– zzzz current word on the stack (return address if a subroutine)With this information I can perhaps get some clues.
Since playing for hours is quite tedious… (and most reports state that a crash occured on 110+ levels)…
This special version is not ment for PLAY.
If you don’t mind… let the game go into “DEMO” mode…. there it will play forever (or till a crash).So please start Vectorblade, do a one time calibration… and leave it alone – till perhaps the error message appears.
By “multitasking” this procedure by including the beta testers I hope to get some more results….
Sending a screenshot of such an occurrence would hopefully help me a lot.Thank you!
Malban
So… the new production was done.
Overall the design was not changed.
Sorry if that one spaceship might be to “penisy” for some taste.
I talked with a few different other people if they take offense – and they didn’t, the overall thought was – “that is just like spaceships look in general” … and the spaceship in question is on the first steps of growth … so I don’t think it is TOO bad.Personally on the photos I didn’t notice the larger “grid” – it probably is more noticable on close inspection. Helmut you are quite a perfectionist to notice! Very good quality in a beta tester :-)!
Actually I would have prefered a totally different background. I would have prefered a different approach than the “usual” vectrex style. But I let Jacek completely free hand on this – so this is what we got – and overall I think it is a very good box.
I haven’t got the boxes yet, but the new photos look very promising:
Cheers
Malban
Lol.
Not really. I “ordered” James to throw them away.
The price for each Vectorblade just went up 3 pounds. The boxes are not right and will be reprinted.
Jacek saw that with one glance… can you?
Malban
‘Just removed a strange little bug.
I could still shoot, enemies appeared – but the shots went thru all enemies. No collision detection.
Also the fighter could not move anymore.
If it had been a “normal” level I would have died, but since it was a challenging stage – all enemies passed by, and the next level started – and everything was fine again.
So tell me – how do you find a bug like that?
You go on a quest – a bug quest, and slay all foes. In the ivory tower back guarded behind a hord of dragons – it lurks.
The solution was:
clr starCount
What happened?
I collected an EXTRA in the correct order and that started the wheel. The wheel is a “break” in the current game scenario – after the break the current game continues exactly where you left. Except stars, stars are random, so I thought I do not have to keep all star information save. After the wheel I just did a “initStars()” – and the game (most of the time) just continues.
But.
Stars are dynamic. depending on how much time I have left, I spawn new stars – or remove “old” ones.
What happened was, that the “wheel break” just happened to be when there was much on the screen, and the dynamic kicked in and removed the stars that it deemed were to many.
The dynamic “starRemove” is such, that at least ONE star element must be kept.What I missed was, that “initStars()” does not reset the starCount – so after the initStars() there were 0 (zero) stars present, but the counter still counted 4.
After the initStars() I spawned one set of stars (since at least one must be present).
In one of the first game rounds – the program discovered – “oops I go near the 50Hz mark, I better remove some stars” – and since it thought “hey 5 stars are available – lets remove some”, ALL stars were removed (the one).
The thing is – within the FIRST displayed star object, the player positions are updated (in the inMove section), and also the collision detection is prepared. This is why at LEAST one star must be present!
And so I could not move any longer, and the shots had no collision detection, since they were never “prepared”.
For today – I crown myself “King of debug” – for finding this really obscure and hard to encounter… BUG!
Malban
Latest version of the instruction booklet:
-> Download: InstructionBeta3.pdf10 – super diamond .. i know this is quite rare to see… however, i got this ‘bonus stage’ when i played tonight, and to me it feels a little ‘unfinished’, as in, there is not really any sounds here if i remember correctly? and also, you dont really do anything, just a big diamond comes to you. maybe you could reduce the big diamond size?
suggestion: …. have the short ‘diamond minestorm’ section like you have now but which has some slower moving regular sized diamonds, but then after a pause, the (reduced in size as its way too big now) super diamond flies down the screen but REALLY fast, so it is not easy to grab it. sometimes you might get it, and sometimes not. like in the picture below, u could set it so the little diamonds dont all move too fast so u can grab some, but the larger super diamond which only comes once, moves VERY FAST so its not easy to get it!Just thought to mention, there is the super diamon level – yes, but that is not random.
The super diamond level appears, when you collect a certain number of diamonds… and is an intermission to reward 100000 extra points.
There ALSO is a Diamond Storm (like Minestorm level – just with ONLY diamonds). THAT one appears randomly (1:255 chance).
Malban
Just checking the code base, as a follow up to the above, here the random range table for bonus…
A random number is generated (0-255), the ranges describe the number range a needed for a bonus.
So it starts at zero, “LETTER E” has a range of 5, so if the random value is between 0-4, then a bonus letter E is created.A “LIFE” bonus only has a chance of 1:255 (~0,4%), and a Minestorm bonus double of that value.
Still, random is a bitch!
Cheers
Malban
;#################
; Random ranges
BONUS_E_RANGE = 5
BONUS_X_RANGE = 5
BONUS_T_RANGE = 5
BONUS_R_RANGE = 5
BONUS_A_RANGE = 5
BONUS_SLOWER_RANGE = 10
BONUS_SHOTMINUS_RANGE = 10
BONUS_SHOTPLUS_RANGE = 10
BONUS_FASTER_SHOT_RANGE = 4
BONUS_FASTER_RANGE = 10
BONUS_ARMOR_RANGE = 3
BONUS_SHIELD_RANGE = 3
BONUS_SCOOP_RANGE = 8
BONUS_SHOT1_RANGE = 15
BONUS_SHOT2_RANGE = 20
BONUS_MINESTORM_RANGE = 2
BONUS_MULT2_RANGE = 8
BONUS_MULT5_RANGE = 2
BONUS_BOMB_CASH_RANGE = 2
BONUS_BOMB_DIAMOND_RANGE = 2
BONUS_TIMER_RANGE = 2
BONUS_SLOWER_SHOT_RANGE = 10
BONUS_MONEY_20_RANGE = 30
BONUS_MONEY_50_RANGE = 5
BONUS_CASH_DOUBLER_RANGE = 1
BONUS_SHOT_POWERUP_RANGE = 1 ; 0.5 in reality
BONUS_LIFE_RANGE = 1
;->BONUS_MONEY_5_RANGE = 71Another beta, -> Download: VectorbladeDiary.pdf
Hi,
last days I again did some small Vectorblade stuff.
Mainly still fixing “super cranky” stuff (the new Vectrex I told you about)… there will not be a new beta version very soon.
Next beta will probably be when I am “totally” finished – and really only bugfixing will be done.
(Meanwhile I might still except small “feature requests” 🙂 ).The overlay “drama” seems to unfold itself, the overlay was sort of approved by the printer and the final “orders” have been given. The printer is unsure if the final result will be “great” – he fears the details…
Although the overlay uses only 4 colors (black, white, red and blue) it must be printed in 7 different stages… the more stages, the more difficult to print…I started fine tuning the “diary”, which will be an extra booklet accompanying the game. VTK has the dubious honor of proof reading…
I also started the instruction booklet, but that will keep me busy for a while, since it is really trying to insert vector graphics.
The first beta of the first 5 pages can be seen at -> Download: InstructionBeta1.pdf
No need to proof read yet… It’s just some scribblings to get used to the editing again.Cheers
Malban
Just played a round of Vectorblade on my new “cranky”.
Found a total of 14 “cranky” bugs…
But tomorrow I’m on holidays for 2 weeks… so that just has to wait…Malban
I got a new Vectrex – a “new” cranky Vectrex from Jürgen.
That is the Vectrex that had slight problems with Release.The “cranky” Vectrex I did all testing on was the one from Thomas… This new cranky one is even more cranky.
I had to change some routines quite a bit to geteverything straight. Game got a little bit slower in the process, but that can’t be helped.
Some update of downloadables pending…
Malban
Hi,
just to let you know – I slowly keep on developing on Vectorblade.
I am a little distracted right now, playing Minecraft with my nephew over the internet :-).I already fixed a couple of the last reported issues (not all of them). Most notably I did a new colision detection if sprite count is low.
I implemented a “hardcore mode” (incl. highscore saving), but this must still be tested.
I made myself reaquainted with the Major Havoc code and did a couple of additional animations. Also written down some explainations.
(probably all I will need for my personal few levels) For better handling (compiling VB takes quite some time by now) I have made an extra MH- project where I can test all things needed standalone.Current animation sequences:
- run left/right
- walk left/right
- fall
- land
- land hard an die
- bump against wall (and fall) left/right
- suffucate + death
- idle animation
- lean against wall
- jmp up
All of the above I did “memory neutral” – meaning I also (memory-) optimized a lot.
I might take some more time before I release a new beta. I’d like to “finish” some stuff first…
But if you encounter any issues – please report!
Thx
Malban
